Your weekly dose of Notre Dame news, opinion, and other stuff.

3 News Stories

#1 Freeman’s Returning

This past Monday, in what was almost assuredly a scheduled tweet, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman announced that he will be returning to Notre Dame following “interest” from the NFL. It’s led to relief, appreciation, and maybe a healthy dose of confusion for Irish fans. Let me see if I can unpack all of this.

After going silent for a while (not unusual for Notre Dame to take its time with something like this) unloading this news from Freeman’s personal account seems a little odd. It feels like a bit of a throwback to 10 years ago when Twitter was still called Twitter and it held far more social influence. This way of breaking news isn’t dead yet!

A grand social media campaign blasted out from all of Notre Dame football’s accounts might make more sense, but let’s also remember the situation the university is in here. You don’t want to really set the precedent of throwing a party that your coach isn’t leaving, especially after signaling you were openly willing to open the bank for Freeman to stay.

Also, as I wrote last week leaving for the NFL (and specifically the Giants) would’ve been a terrible decision for Freeman. It’s also important to note that Freeman didn’t even interview for a NFL job. If you zoom out, it’s kind of of ridiculous to make such a big deal either way, in terms of Freeman staying or leaving, when the NFL interest never really got that far. This seems to be the angle coming from the NFL side of things too–Freeman seems like an interesting guy but is very far away from truly being in contention for a job at the pro level.

The cynic might argue this is going to be a yearly off-season drama for Freeman now. I disagree. As I wrote before, the odds of Freeman actually leaving for the NFL are very small. So many things would have to line up. Freeman would have to keep on winning at an extremely high level AND be genuinely interested in the NFL. The NFL would have to be interested, too. The NFL would have to convince itself its worth taking a shot on a pure college coach.

Fair play to Freeman for using this as leverage (was it even needed!?) to secure a top-level contract extension at Notre Dame. However, this isn’t a card you can play every year. We went through a more serious situation with Brian Kelly in early 2013 (he actually interviewed with the Eagles!) with people swearing the NFL thing would loom over Notre Dame for years to come. And, it pretty quickly went away for good.

#2 Hinish Retires

Dropped into Freeman news on Monday was the unfortunate retirement of Notre Dame defensive tackle Donovan Hinish due to a lingering shoulder injury. He was eligible for a 5th season with the Irish and leaves another hole in the 2026 depth chart. Jason Onye is reportedly applying for a 6th season (he redshirt in 2021, played 1 game in 2022, 13 in 2023, 5 in 2024, and 12 games this past season) and if that is unsuccessful, Notre Dame will be losing its top 4 defensive tackles from this past fall. Not great!

Hinish is hanging up the cleats.

Over/under on the defensive interior incoming transfers: 3.5

I will also mention that the 2025 captains took a lot of people by surprise. Hinish retired, both Wagner and Schrauth left for the NFL, and Will Pauling is out of eligibility after being on campus for one season. That leaves only Drayk Bowen and Adon Shuler as returning captains. We’ll need some new ones on offense, at least.

#3 Kyle to Michigan

Is Kyle Whittingham going to Michigan a good hire? Maybe, at least giving *everything* going on in Ann Arbor and the circumstances you have to consider this a quality hire. It’s crazy to think back to the early Brian Kelly years when Whittingham was consistently talked about as a good replacement someday at Notre Dame. But, that was over a decade ago!

Whittingham will turn 67 during next football season and had been teasing retirement at Utah for several years with defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley waiting patiently to take over the program. Whittingham finally pulled the plug on December 12th with the Utes, but said he wasn’t done coaching, and 2 weeks later he signed a 5-year deal with Michigan.

This looks so strange.

We talked about this a lot when debating if Whittingham would work culturally in South Bend someday, and bringing him across the country to Ann Arbor this late in his career doesn’t feel like it’s going to work particularly well. A nice stable hire sure, but surely the ceiling isn’t going to be very high, right? Whittingham is bringing his defensive coordinator from Utah, another former associate who spent several years with the Utes as OC, and will probably back the staff full of guys with little experience in the Midwest and Big Ten.

I’m not sure what other move Michigan could’ve made here, but I get the sense Whittingham will stay for about 3 years, go something like 27-12, and then actually retire for good. They should continue looking for the guy after the guy.

Uniform of the Week

New Mexico played in the Rate Bowl recently and lost 20-17 in overtime to Minnesota. By the way, P.J. Fleck is now 7-0 in bowl games with the Gophers. I take that to mean they are not playing in difficult enough bowl games.

Anyway, New Mexico wore a variant of a turquoise jersey uniform that was debuted ahead of the 2025, except with a white helmet and “Lobos” script in red. Back in October, they wore a similar look against Utah State except they paired it with a silver helmet (their traditional helmet color) and sacred red tribe state flag logo. This is an amazing look.

We need a full-time switch to this.

The Lobos have been quietly (not many eyeballs on the Mountain West these days) rolling out various uniform changes. Their normal uniforms are fine, although not very memorable. The silver helmet is something that should stay–and why not pivot to turquoise full-time? It would instantly move New Mexico up the uniform rankings and create a new story for the program as a mid-major.

Media

We covered the first movie installment of Wicked last year and the second-part film came out a couple months ago, plus I also went to the off Broadway Wicked show in town. Can you tell I have young daughters? It’s been a lot of Elphaba and Glinda around my house. I know the original book is way different and a much more mature and convoluted story. Set against that, I think the movies and musical are very enjoyable. It’s a tough story to pull off and they do a good job of making it entertaining.

However, can we agree the ending is truly terrible!? I want it to be re-written so bad. My biggest problem is the way the wizard and Madame Morrible are dealt with in the end. They are super interesting characters and they just kind of leave the picture without fanfare. Glinda is a really flawed character, with no real power, and gets to just shoo them away from Oz, it’s absurd. How in the hell is Glinda going to keep all the *glitter* and magic going in Oz by herself?? She’s the least likable character in the whole production, it’s silly.

Tunes

Before Christmas music took things over I heard this very unusual song on the Hits 1 channel. If you pay attention to the modern music charts with any regularity there isn’t much variation outside of hip-hop and pop, with modern country sprinkled in as its own evolving (but probably more pop than anything) genre. But, this song was different. Way different. I heard it again a few days later taking my kids home from swimming lessons. I googled the lyrics I could remember when we got home and discovered Laufey (pronounced LAY-vay in English).

The song is called “Lover Girl” and was the 3rd single off her 2025 album A Matter of Time. I didn’t know what I expected but an Icelandic/Chinese singer wasn’t on my mind. The song is a certified bop. It’s a throwback, and after listening to a couple of Laufey’s albums her style is steeped in jazz but also her most recent album has a lot more of a modern/pop feel to it. If you need a good cry, also check out “Snow White” from her latest album too.

One More Thing

This is going to be a fun and random section of the Rambler each week. To start things off for 2026 I’m coming in HOT in this first installment. Pepsi is better than Coke, there I said it.

This is for the diet varieties, as an adult I drink maybe 2 or 3 sugary sodas (pops, right?) per year. Actually, maybe a few more as I’ll grab one during a quick slop stop during a long bike ride. In a head-to-head battle I have these rankings:

Pepsi Zero
…..sizable drop
Diet Coke
…..sizable drop
Diet Pepsi
…..
…..big drop
Coke Zero

This has been brewing (or fizzing lol) inside of me for a while. I don’t actively dislike Coca-Cola, it’s American as American can be. As a marketing product, I like it a lot. Growing up in New York, Pepsi was ubiquitous but it’s not like it completely dominated sales over Coke.

Josh knows what’s up.

A quick search shows that Coke Zero was reformulated again sometime around 2023. Did it get worse? I’ve noticed it’s ridiculously fizzy and bubbly. These bubbles need to calm down. There are reports that Coke Zero got spicier, almost like it’s moving closer to Dr. Pepper. I taste that a little bit, too. The worst part is that Coke Zero tastes so bitter now. It’s not how I remember Coke tasting in the past.

There have to be people out there who like both products but also have discovered something happened to Coke Zero, too. Help me!